A Malaysian Cooking Lesson

This afternoon Rina and her sister Ferah came to my house to give a Malaysian cooking lesson to my friend and me.

Rena in purple and Ferah in yellow.

Rina comes from a family of good cooks including her mom who made me a delicious meal last weekend and a sister who is a chef at a local restaurant. In addition, Rina used to teach cooking at the local community college so she knows how to cook and to give cooking lessons. 

Coconut paste, coconut powder...I never knew there was anything besides the "shaved coconut" we use for baking cookies.

I took pictures of the ingredients because there were several that we couldn't identify. Even though Rena's husband translated and typed up the recipes for us, some words did not translate well. We still don't know what "rustle 5 blade" is. Nor are we 100% sure what "serai" is except that it smells like lemongrass. (It looks like scallions but it's hard and stiff like bamboo) We have no idea what Asam Jawal paste is but the picture on the pack leads us to believe that it's lotus paste or stinky bean (my name) paste.

From left to right - turmeric, star anise, cinnamon, whole cumin (feel free to correct me on any of these)

Just to show you how ignorant I am about cooking, I did not know cumin came in a seed (I only thought it was a McCormick powder that Rachel Ray likes to add to chili powder to give a nice "smokey" flavor to a hamburgers) I'd never seen a pretty anise star. They would be fun to glue on a picture and make a collage. In other words, it's embarrassing not to be able to buy spices by look or smell but rather rely on jars with labels in English. Hopefully, these lessons will be good for my future endeavors.

Serai - (lemongrass - we think)

Rina cooking the Rendang Chicken

Rena, the head chef,  did most of the cooking and her sister Ferah, the assistant, did most of the dishes.  Not only do I have delicious food for dinner, I've got a clean kitchen to boot.

Kari Ayam - Curry Chicken simmering on the stove.

Aside from the fun of learning something new, my friend and I also can impress our husbands with our "home-cooked" meal for tonight's dinner. Speaking of dinner, I need to make a quick pot of rice and warm the chicken so the house will smell good when my husband walks in the door.